Wenger Calls Uefa A ‘Dictatorship’ And ‘Arrogant’

byDavidonMarch 10, 2011

It appears that Arsene Wenger is still furious about the refereeing in Barcelona if his quotes in the Guardian are anything to go by.

Here are some of his comments:

“Arsenal football club has been punished. When you have a football game of that stature, you cannot come out with decisions like that and show a lot of arrogance on top of that. We can all understand that we can make wrong decisions but, after that, it becomes dictatorship. It’s not common sense any more.

“A bit more humility would do Uefa some good. To apologise for what happened would be much better than to charge people who have done nothing wrong. Uefa has to have a little bit [of a] low profile after what happened. That would be better, more sensible and more adapted to the situation.

“We are out of the Champions League, we have lost one of our big ambitions, we have been punished with a lot of damages and, on top of that, we have to say sorry to Uefa. We have done nothing wrong. They organised the competition, they named the referees who come to the games. It’s not to me [they should apologise]. They do not punish me. It’s Arsenal football club that has been punished.”

Wenger outlined his determination to fight the charge and he muttered darkly when he was asked whether he had sworn at Busacca.

“I will keep that for Uefa if they really want to know because I will have some interesting statements to make about some statements made by people who were not supposed to say what they said,” he replied. “Did Busacca say something back to me? I don’t want to go public on that.”

“Our not having a shot on target was our biggest problem but that would not have happened had we stayed 11 versus 11, believe me. We had already given a lot and to be down to 10 men … the referee knew exactly at that moment in time and I knew exactly what would happen; that in the last 20 minutes, it will be too difficult.”